Suede's Anderson, Butler Prep Debut as The Tears

As previously reported back in May, former Suede (or London Suede, for U.S. fans-- or people who just like to say "London") vocalist Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler have spent a good portion of 2004 collaborating on songs for a new project. The actual work the duo were producing had first taken shape as an Anderson solo album before being hailed as a full on joint effort. Fans have sort of been left wondering what the actual union would be officially called-- until now, that is-- as NME has reported that the pair have named their new band... The Tears! Ahem.

On the upside, The Tears' debut album has been written, recorded, and mixed, and is expected to hit stores in the first quarter of 2005. While no firm release date or tracklist details have been revealed, the first single is planned for release early next year.

Speaking of his reunion with Butler, Anderson told NME, "There's a lot of people out there who are worried about us getting back together and tarnishing what we've done before. The first thing we said when we got together was that we won't release a note of music unless the album's spectacular. That's the most important thing about it. We could have written for three years and if the songs hadn't been any good we wouldn't have bothered getting to this stage with it."

Fans can judge rate the overall spectacularness of the band's material at two live dates scheduled for late this year. Anderson continued optimistically about the upcoming shows. "There's that whole issue of, 'When they get back together are they going to live up to what they've done in the past?' We don't want that to be an issue so it has to be spectacular." Spectacular:

12-16 London, England - Heaven
12-18 Barcelona, Spain - Razzmatazz